


Each Small Candle

by flawedamythyst



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s03e16 No Rest for the Wicked, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-17
Updated: 2008-05-17
Packaged: 2018-10-16 08:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10567707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Dean starts to lose himself in Hell.





	

It's dark.

That's the only constant here - even the pain fades away sometimes, slowly sinking into numbness before it comes back with a sharp burn, cutting through his bones and tearing screams from him. It moves around his body, keeping him guessing as to what's coming next - a tearing wrench in his shoulder, sharp, stabbing pains in his stomach. It never settles for long enough for him to get used to it.

Sometimes it's silent in the dark - so silent that he begins to forget what sound is, begins to think that maybe nothing has ever existed except this silence, cocooning him away from everything else. Maybe nothing else exists, just this dark, silent moment, lasting for eternity. Then the pain-filled screams come, both in the distance and so close that he can almost feel the air being exhaled from ragged, bloody throats. Sometimes they sound familiar, like he should know the faces behind them, even though it's too dark to see. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is screaming, and he screams along with it.

There are other noises as well. Knives being sharpened, cruel voices laughing, taunting him, telling him that he's failed, he's worthless, that he'll never be free and the pain and the dark will go on forever. He doesn't mind that so much. After all, he must have failed at something, or he wouldn't be here, and he must be worthless or someone would come and rescue him, and he can't remember what it's like to be free, so being told he'll stay there forever...well, where else would he be? Where else is there?

It's dark through all of it. He never sees who's screaming, never knows what faces the mocking voices come from, and if it wasn't for the images in his head that match the words he thinks ( _blood, throat, knife_ ) he'd probably forget that there'd ever been light to see by.

 

****

 

Time passes.

When the pain has been too strong for too long, he can hold on to the truth that it will eventually recede, and when he's been numb so long that he begins to forget what it was like to feel, he knows that it will come back and remind him. Even when the silence presses in around him and he wonders if he'll ever hear anything again, he can still remember noise, and when the sounds come - screams surrounding him so closely that he thinks his eardrums are going to burst - he knows that, if he waits long enough, they'll be gone again.

The dark never changes. It presses in around him when it's silent, smothering him with nothingness; it hides the source of both screams and laughter, leaving him imagining horrible things; and, slowly, it invades his mind.

It sinks into his thoughts until he begins to forget the exact shapes of things and is left with only a vague impression of what they'd looked like. Knives were bright and sharp, and throats were long and pale, and they were both smeared with red, but the details of lines, angles and curves have all faded away. And what exactly was red like? Had it been a different kind of dark, like the faint difference between shutting his eyes and opening them?

He's losing himself to it. He can feel himself flowing away, and he knows that that's bad, that he shouldn't let that happen, but he can't remember how to stop it. Or why it's so important - surely if he sinks into the dark, becomes part of it, he won't feel anything any more, won't hear anything, won't _be_ anything, and then he can rest? He's so tired, tired of the noise and the silence, the pain and the numbness, tired of just hanging in the darkness. What is there to hold on for? Why shouldn't he just sink away into nothingness?

 

****

 

It's one of the voices that reminds him.

They're laughing at him, telling him how badly he's failed everything he's ever been taught and everyone he's ever loved, asking him how he could think anyone would ever love him.

"What would your brother think of you now?" hisses one of them, and it's like a light switch turning on.

 _Brother_.

Loud laughter and dimples; floppy hair that never fell the same way twice; dark eyes looking at him beseechingly, full of desperate fear; trailing shoelaces and showing him how to tie them; blood soaking into an old, beige jacket. It all floods in at once, and Dean can barely catch his breath.

The voices fall silent as if realising that they've made a mistake, and he takes the time to let the memories sink down through his mind, driving out the darkness, until he's holding on to one image, stronger and more solid than anything he can remember feeling, of the man _his brother_ relaxed back in the passenger seat of a car, grinning at him and holding a leather-bound book.

The pain comes back, burning hot down his spine, and he can hear screaming close at hand, but he clings on to the memory. Later, the silence presses in again, while his heart contracts as if being squeezed in a grip of steel, but his brother is smiling in his mind and it doesn't hurt like it used to.

The darkness can't take who he is away while the image lights up his mind. He pushes away everything else - the pain, the screams, the taunts, even the darkness - and holds on to his brother as hard as he can.

 


End file.
